Page 24 of The Mirror of Beasts

How many times had I sat at a bar beside Nash, waiting for him to find answers to his existential angst at the bottom of a glass, or meet a potential partner for a job?

“Closing now!” the bartender called. I startled, momentarily unnerved by the squawking quality of his voice.

I moved away again, leaning over the bar. The bartender’s gray eyes stared down his long nose at me, waiting. His fingernails, filed to careful points, tapped an impatient tempo on the counter.

“Is there a …,” I began, trying to figure out how to ask this. “Ah … a collector, or trader, or …” Grave robber. Bone snatcher. Gossip procurer. Finally, I settled on, “Are you the owner of this fine establishment?”

“No.” The bartender turned back to his work, ignoring my look of irritation.

The white-haired man with a pockmarked face was the last customer to leave, sliding off his stool with only a grunt of acknowledgment to the bartender. He left behind an empty pint and a few crumpled pound notes.

And his granddaughter.

I watched in disbelief as he pulled his coat off the rack and walked out the door, letting it swing shut again behind him.

“What the hell?” Emrys said beneath his breath, starting after him. “Hey—!”

“Afraid to use my name?” came a cranky little voice beside me.

Emrys and I turned slowly.

The little girl tossed her hair back over her shoulders, shutting the thick leather notebook. Her ledger. In her hand wasn’t a pen at all, but a quill carved out of joined fingerbones.

“It’s just as well,” the little girl said, propping her chin against her fist, “that I’m not afraid to use yours, Tamsin Lark.”

“You?”

The child was almost doll-like in appearance, her features unbearably soft save for her green eyes. There was no innocence to them; they were shards of glass capable of cutting someone open to see what was hiding beneath their skin. It was the gaze of someone who’d seen history unspool itself over centuries—of a soul too old to be wearing that face.

“I’ve an ointment that’ll help you with your locked jaw,” the girl said. “It’ll only cost you three gold pieces, or a favor.”

Her tone was formal, carrying some unidentifiable accent that made every word sound like a line of ancient poetry.

I promptly shut my mouth. “I’m … how?”

The Bonecutter looked to Emrys. “I suppose I have you to thank for this unpleasant surprise. I’d heard your father was stirring up old ghosts and throwing money around to see what ex-clients would bite.”

“He did indeed,” Emrys said, struggling to contain his own shock.

“That’s the way of it with you Dyes,” the Bonecutter groused, rolling her quill against the counter. “There’s not a job you won’t pay someone else to do for you, if you can.”

“Oh my goodness!” I heard Neve sing as she came up behind us. I turned with slow horror, but it was already too late to stop her. “Aren’t you adorable? I love your dress!”

The girl’s eyes narrowed, hardening like flint. The air around us darkened, as if the light itself had shrunk away in horror. The temperature plunged.

The glasses on the shelves rattled, threatening to dance off into shattered oblivion. The bartender merely steadied the wineglasses with one hand while wiping down the back counter with the other.

All at once, the pressure released, and the glow of the fire returned to the pub.

“But I really do like her dress,” Neve murmured from somewhere behind me. Olwen hushed her.

The Bonecutter glanced past my shoulder.

“No need for blades, Caitriona of Avalon. I’m certain you wouldn’t enjoy an introduction to my own collection.”

Caitriona lowered her knife, but only to her side. “You know who I am.”

“I know all of you,” the Bonecutter said. “The four who shattered the bonds of ancient magic to rejoin the worlds, at deadly cost. The Unmakers. And the tragic Dye heir, of course.”

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